UNM Health Sciences recruiting undergrads for summer 2025 research cohort

The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center has a longstanding tradition of training undergraduates in the biomedical sciences through summer research programs.

The UNMHSC Undergraduate Pipeline Network (UPN) program is an umbrella program that brings together undergraduates to conduct summer biomedical research across the UNMHSC campus with the goal of cultivating students' interest in research while helping them attain skills needed to apply for and succeed in post-baccalaureate education.

The UPN is now recruiting for the 2025 summer cohort. The application for the 2025 cohort is currently live with a Feb. 1, 2025 deadline. The 2025 summer program will run from May 28 - Aug. 1. Admissions details are here.

The program started small in 2009 with only two students, said Jennifer M. Gillette, Ph.D., UPN director and professor in the Department of Pathology. But this summer, due to successfully acquiring extramural funding and various partnerships, the 2025 cohort will likely be about 55 scholars.

As an umbrella program, UPN matches scholars with research mentors across the HSC and central campuses from six major areas of study: Cancer Biology, Infectious Disease and Immunity, Environmental Toxicology, Brain and Behavioral Neuroscience, Cardiovascular Disease and Metabolism, and community-based health disparities and Epidemiology research.

Research programs participating in the UPN summer research experience and grants that support UPN scholars include the American Heart Association Supporting Undergraduate Research Experiences (SURE), American Cancer Society Diversity in Cancer Research (DICR) Internship Program, Cancer Research - Scholarship and Training in Population Sciences (C-STEPS), New Mexico IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), and UNM Continuing Umbrella for Research Experiences (CURE) for Cancer.

Over the course of 10 weeks students participate in three facets of the program which include:

• Independent research projects with their mentors,
• Skill-building seminars through their weekly one credit BIOM 410 course Research in Medical Sciences, and
• Structured, collaborative/cohort building activities.

"The UPN cultivates students' interest in research, boosts their self-efficacy to perform related activities, and helps them attain the skills needed to apply for and eventually succeed in graduate/professional school," Gillette said. "This experience also allows students to discover and explore career options available to them by working as researchers with faculty mentors as part of a collaborative team where they learn about new employment fields in the biomedical sciences. Students gain the practical experience of applying their academic knowledge, which better prepares them to have a profound effect on the research field."

UPN recruits broadly from all over New Mexico, including rural communities, and across the country, encouraging applications from students from historically underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences, Gillette noted. Importantly, the UPN program is also a critical recruiting tool not only for the UNM HSC Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program (BSGP) but serves as a pipeline program for all HSC programs, including the M.D., PharmD, P.A., M.D./Ph.D., Population Health, Nursing, and other health professions programs.

"My primary goal for the UPN program is to provide a unique research-focused experience for students to be nudged out of their comfort zone and exposed to the breadth of opportunities that are available to them within the biomedical workforce," Gillette said. "For many students, this is the first time they've ever seen themselves as being able to pursue a career in this area, therefore, it serves as that initial spark and provides the tools, guidance, and connections to help them succeed in their next step. Moreover, scholars have the opportunity to meet not just students from across New Mexico, but the entire country, which helps broaden the perspectives of all scholars and provides an invaluable growth opportunity at this critical stage in their academic career."

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UNM is an R1 university. R1 is a designation by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and is reserved for doctoral universities with very high levels of research activity. UNM is the only university in New Mexico with this prestigious designation.

Top image: 2024 UPN summer cohort.

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